Zip Your Lip About Zip Codes

June 29, 1992

In Boca Raton, even the tiniest, most nitpicking issue can dominate the City Council`s time, especially if the city`s prestige is involved. In a city where thousand-dollar garbage cans once took center stage, it can`t be surprising to hear Council Member Al Alford demanding separate ZIP codes for Boca Raton.

No matter that the U.S. Postal Service uses ZIP codes to speed mail delivery -- if speed is the right word -- and not to identify cities. No matter that the U.S. Congress would have to pass a new law to change the practice.

Alford plows onward, trying to separate true Boca Raton residents from interlopers who live west of the city but who, gasp, have the same ZIP codes as those inside the hallowed city.

Obviously, Alford needs something constructive to do. Perhaps he could count the parking spaces in the Mizner Park shopping center.

PUNISHMENT FINALLY FITS CRIME

It`s about time that Teflon wore off. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to nail the ``Teflon Don,`` New York Mafia kingpin John Gotti finally got hit with a punishment to fit the crime. Last week in New York, a federal judge sentenced ``Teflon Don,`` also known as ``Dapper Don,`` also known as your basic slimeball thug, to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

Despite his history of bloody violence, the perpetually well-dressed mobster still projects a type of charisma that often seems to fascinate the public more than repel it.

On the day he was sentenced, hundreds of Gotti supporters stormed the courthouse and battled police. Eight officers and several protesters were injured as the angry crowd overturned a car and smashed the windows of a half dozen others. ``He has a constitutional right to be not guilty,`` one supporter said into a microphone.